Here is what people are having a hard time accepting:
The Republicans are knowingly and actively shielding and supporting liars and lawbreakers because they want to destroy. The lies and lawbreaking are intended to destroy.
If anyone made these promises, that person lied⤵️
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It seems to me that this is based on a theory that goes like this: We had a lovely democracy and then along came the lawbreaking Republicans. Because they are breaking laws, we can solve the problem through the criminal justice system.
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Two things are happening right now on left media:
(1) People misunderstand the lies and lawbreaking on the right.
(2) People tell their own lies (what I've been calling rage-inducing simplifications) based on a faulty view of history and the nature of the problem.
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I can put this all into a thread again, or I can send you to my videos (transcripts are on my blog).
Start with the pinned tweet. Transcripts for all the videos are on my blog.
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Rage-inducing simplifications fit easily into a Tweet, and are then repeated mindlessly as if they are facts.
The truth is more nuanced and complex.
That's why truth loses.
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There is no person who would have had the authority to make such a "promise."
Nobody can promise to make the problem of right-wing extremism would magically disappear.
Right-wing extremism has been gathering force for decades, since Brown v. Board of Education.
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There was, perhaps, hope that exposing the criminality would prompt enough Republicans to jump ship to split or weaken the party.
The problem isn't merely lawbreaking.
The problem is that the lawbreaking is being supported and shielded by a major party with a lot of power.
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Misidentifying the problem leads people to blame the Democrats for Republican lawbreaking.
If you think all was lovely and then along came a cabal of lawbreakers, it's natural to think the problem is they haven't been prosecuted.
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In fact, the Republican Party views our current federal government as illegitimate. (That's part of the desire to dismantle Roe v, Wade and 'leave it up to the states. That's the thinking that supported the Confederacy.)
One way to counter the anti-Merrick Garland rage is with facts (here is how complex investigations work, here's the evidence we have of what is happening).
Another way perhaps is to ask: If a president removed an AG because of a pressure campaign by political partisans. . .
. . . who are demanding specific prosecutions, wouldn't that itself be politicizing the DOJ, which is exactly what Barr and Trump tried to do, which we all agreed was destructive to democracy?
Garland continually answers his critics by saying "They will follow the facts."
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One of the pillars of democracy is an independent prosecutor. In an autocracy, the autocrat decides. In an era of mob rule (i.e. lynchings) the mob decides.
As our democracy is set up, the prosecutor decides.
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This is the problem. People think that the problem of right-wing extremism can be "fixed" and they're waiting for that to happen and demanding that someone fix the problem.
Now people believe that criminal indictments will "fix" the problem.
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If you think that criminal indictments will fix the problem and make the threat of right-wing extremism go away, of course you're frustrated and impatient.
All I can figure is that it comes from a very weird idea of history, that goes like this . . .
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At some point in our recent history, we had a lovely democracy, and then up rose a cabal of criminals.
Now, we just need to put those criminal in jail and the
problem will be fixed.
When was this lovely democracy? Before 1954?
Nope. We had racial segregation.
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This is an example of a rage-inducing simplification.
🔹It ignores ongoing investigations (actually pretends they're are not happening)
🔹It assumes unrealistic timelines
🔹It ignores the reality of how investigations occur
Mostly, it mindlessly repeats what other people say.
In a video that I link to here⤵️ @TimothyDSnyder talks about how mindlessly repeating Internet "triggers" endangers democracy by, basically, turning us into mindless repeaters of trigger phrases.
"Rule of law" doesn't mean that each transgression is punished. Quite the contrary. Due process and constitutional protections mean not every person who commits a crime gets prosecuted.
Just striving for precision here.
You meant: "Trump broke laws so I want him prosecuted."
What DOJ investigators need to do is put on blinders, follow the evidence where it leads (as they have said many times they are doing; see ⤵️for example) and ignore cries from partisans to prosecute political leaders.
The committee's mission statement includes working with other "entities" to avoid duplication of efforts."
It's also clear from their statement that they're looking beyond Jan. 6 to tie together what happened (meaning all parts of the conspiracy.) january6th.house.gov/about
It's a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election and an ongoing coverup.